‘WE’VE JUST ARRIVED... WE’LL DO OUR BEST

‘No quarantine for Northern Ireland’

IT will be almost impossible to enforce home quarantine for inbound flights, passengers who had just landed in Dublin Airport said yesterday.

Albert Murray from Navan, who was on holidays in Rojales village in Alicante, Spain with his wife, Joan, said he would do his best to quarantine at home.

‘It’s very difficult to isolate yourself. We’re living at home with our daughter.

‘All you can do is your best, but it’s not easy for anyone,’ he said.

Meanwhile, Anna Pereira was flying back from her home country of Zambia where she was visiting family and friends.

She said that she would try to self-isolate but she didn’t get the sense that people were taking it very seriously.

She was returning to Maynooth University – where she is studying human resources – and didn’t believe that many passengers would be isolating themselves for 14 days.

There was a strong contingent of passengers travelling to Northern Ireland, which is exempt from the Republic’s quarantine rules – even if those passengers will later be flying out from Dublin.

Sam and Violet Rainey live in Alicante and were returning to see family and friends in Belfast for a few weeks.

Mr Rainey said that Northern Ireland recently aligned itself with the rest of the UK in its travel rules and, as a result, they won’t be in quarantine when they return to east Belfast today.

They are both members of the Salt Church evangelical community in Alicante and were impressed with the social distancing in the church and also in local restaurants.

They said they didn’t feel the need to quarantine for 14 days.

Simon Winiewski from Poland was travelling up to Northern Ireland to work on graphic design for a bus company in Ballymena, Co. Antrim. ‘I am only going to be there for three days and then I come back down to Dublin,’ he said. ‘I am told there is no quarantine for Northern Ireland so it won’t affect me.’

ANNA PEREIRA coming back from visiting family in her native Zambia ‘I will try to isolate but it’s very difficult. I don’t think that many people are taking it seriously. There are restrictions in place in Zambia and I wore a mask for a six-hour flight to Frankfurt, and then to Dublin. It wasn’t easy.’

ALBERT MURRAY coming back from holiday in Alicante ‘It’s very difficult to isolate yourself. We’re living at home with our daughter. All you can do is your best but it’s not easy for anyone. But they take the rules very seriously in Spain – €500 fine if you are caught in the same car, even for couples like ourselves who share the same bed.’

SAM AND VIOLET RAINEY living in Alicante, returning to visit family in Belfast ‘Northern Ireland aligned itself with what the rest of the UK was doing just this month, so we won’t be self-isolating. Spain has very strict rules in place on social distancing, in restaurants and the church and we felt safe there.’